Llandudno · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Llandudno workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Llandudno
Llandudno is the Queen of the Welsh Resorts, the largest seaside town in Wales, laid out along a curving peninsula between the Great Orme and Little Orme headlands in Conwy. Its sweeping Victorian promenade and pier - the longest in Wales at more than 2,000 feet - were the making of a resort planned by the Mostyn family in the nineteenth century. Beneath the tourism, though, the town began as a copper-mining settlement on the Great Orme, and the trades that keep it running still carry the same duties as any workshop.
The working economy runs on a huge hospitality estate of hotels, restaurants and commercial laundries, supported by engineering, joinery and vehicle trades grouped in the units at Mochdre Commerce Parc and along Builder Street near Llandudno Junction.
Every one of those Llandudno processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Mochdre Commerce Parc units to the smaller Llandudno workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Llandudno and the wider Conwy it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the lathes and machining centres in the light-industrial units at Mochdre Commerce Parc and Builder Street, where a captured mist is one that never reaches an operator's lungs.
Steam canopies, flour-dust and oven extraction in the bakeries and production kitchens that supply Llandudno's hotels, cafes and the seafront trade through a long summer season.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the cabinet and joinery shops around Mochdre and Builder Street, capturing hardwood and MDF dust at the tool before it can hang in the air.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Mochdre and Builder Street units, and in the boatyard and hotel-maintenance trades. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Llandudno bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the laboratories at Llandudno General Hospital and the science rooms of the town's schools and college sites, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Llandudno
We are out under Llandudno's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a family-owned Llandudno monumental mason's, capture velocity at some of the dust hoods had slipped below benchmark, with debris building up in the ducting. We carried out a full thorough examination and test, taking velocity readings, running smoke to visualise the pull and checking the filters. The LEV passed on re-test across the hoods, documented with a thorough examination and test certificate. We fitted the visit around the lunch rush so staff weren't disturbed.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Llandudno system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Mochdre Commerce Parc units - the faults that quietly kill capture.
Face and capture velocities, static pressures and airflows measured at each hood with calibrated instruments - numbers, not opinion.
Readings compared to the system's commissioning figures, so drift from as-designed is caught before it becomes a failure on a Llandudno line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
Across most Llandudno sites - the Mochdre Commerce Parc plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Llandudno site.
Calibrated velocity, pressure and airflow readings at each extraction point.
A COSHH-compliant report: results against benchmark, clear pass or fail, and plain-English actions for the Llandudno duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Builder Street floor.
Questions
Under COSHH Regulation 9, most local exhaust ventilation needs a thorough examination and test at least every 14 months, with higher-risk processes more often. A precision engineering and manufacturing bay, a food and drink production bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
A dated report to the HSG258 method, the readings taken, a pass or remedial outcome for each hood, and system labelling - the evidence a duty-holder at Mochdre Commerce Parc or a smaller Llandudno workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. Each hood is labelled with its status and next-due date, and you get the HSG258 report and system schematic for your COSHH file - the record an HSE inspector visiting a Mochdre Commerce Parc unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Mochdre Commerce Parc and Builder Street, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Conwy.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Mochdre Commerce Parc and Builder Street and across the wider Conwy.
No. LEV testing is a statutory examination of fume and dust control to COSHH and HSG258, with capture and face-velocity readings; TR19 is kitchen grease and fire risk. We do both across Llandudno, but a Mochdre Commerce Parc fabrication shop and a Mostyn Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
We record it as remedial and set out what is needed - airflow, ductwork, filtration or capture at the hood. You do the work and we re-test, and on a Mochdre Commerce Parc production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Local knowledge
The Great Orme copper mine above Llandudno was first worked in the Bronze Age around four thousand years ago, and in 2005 its five miles of tunnels were recognised as the largest prehistoric copper mine in the world. That mining and quarrying instinct never entirely left the town, and it survives now in the engineering, fabrication and maintenance trades in the units at Mochdre and Builder Street. Every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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